Inner conflicts: where the idea comes from and how it shapes our lives

You long for closeness and pull back as soon as things get serious. You promise yourself you will finally say no in the meeting, and hear yourself saying yes again. Two forces pull in different directions, and in the end no decision feels right. This is what psychology calls an inner conflict.

What is an inner conflict?

An inner conflict arises when two motives are active at once but cannot both be satisfied. Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the classic case this way: reducing one motivating need increases another, and the person has to make a new adjustment³. Lean fully into security and you give up some freedom. Stand your ground and you risk belonging.

The crucial point: many of these conflicts are not conscious. We notice them by their effects, a vague unease, feelings that do not fit the situation, or situations that keep repeating.

A short history of the idea

Freud and psychoanalysis

Classical psychoanalysis assumed that mental suffering stems from contradictory, seemingly irreconcilable wishes and beliefs. Freud located the conflict between instinctual desires, the constraints of reality and moral demands². His structural model of id, ego and superego, set out in The Ego and the Id (1923), gave this idea its form. The ego develops defence mechanisms to deal with such conflicts¹.

Social psychology

In the 1950s the psychologist Leon Festinger described cognitive dissonance: the inner tension when beliefs are contradicted by new information. People often reduce it by rejecting, explaining away or avoiding the troubling information⁴. Here too, the conflict is not resolved but pushed aside.

Relationship patterns and research

The psychotherapy researcher Lester Luborsky made inner conflicts measurable. His Core Conflictual Relationship Theme (CCRT) method describes what a person wishes for in relationships, how they expect others to respond, and how they respond in turn. Such themes repeat across relationships like a template and are linked to early experiences⁵.

The OPD in Germany

In German-speaking countries, the Operationalized Psychodynamic Diagnosis (OPD) has become established. It is a multiaxial diagnostic system, and one of its axes is devoted specifically to inner conflicts. Studies show good reliability in research and acceptable reliability in clinical practice⁷. The current edition, OPD-3 (2023), maps the interplay between conflict and psychological structure in more detail⁸. The OPD describes long-standing basic conflicts, for example between closeness and autonomy, between submission and control, or around self-worth. MindMotion is built on this foundation.

How inner conflicts show up in everyday life

In everyday life, inner conflicts are rarely dramatic. They show up quietly: you put off a decision for weeks. You go over a conversation again and again in the evening. You feel exhausted although objectively not much has happened.

Research supports this impression. A review by Kelly, Mansell and Wood concludes that goal conflict, ambivalence and the gap between who you are and who you want to be can impair well-being. The evidence is strongest for ambivalence and self-discrepancy⁶.

Inner conflicts in relationships

Nowhere do inner conflicts become as visible as in close relationships. A typical pattern: someone longs for security but secretly expects rejection, and so withdraws before it can hurt. The partner experiences distance, reacts with uncertainty, and the expectation seems confirmed.

This sequence of wish, expected response of the other and one’s own response is exactly what the CCRT method describes. The more often such a theme appears in a person’s stories, the more strongly it is linked to symptoms⁵. The argument seems to be about the dishes or the phone, but at its core it is about closeness and safety.

Inner conflicts at work

Inner conflicts play out at work too. Someone who learned that fitting in brings safety says yes to every extra task and is annoyed afterwards. Someone who defines their worth through performance experiences factual criticism as a personal wound. And anyone who spends day after day doing things that clash with their values feels exactly the dissonance Festinger described⁴.

Kelly and colleagues place conflicts in a goal hierarchy, from concrete everyday goals to fundamental life goals. Conflicts at several or higher levels may weigh more heavily on well-being⁶. An argument about schedules is annoying. A conflict between “I want to be seen” and “I must not stand out” can shape an entire career.

Why resolving conflicts often leads to improvement

The good news: inner conflicts are not fate. When goals fit together and match one’s own needs, which researchers call self-concordance, this goes along with greater well-being⁶.

Psychodynamic psychotherapy, which works directly with such inner conflicts, is particularly well studied. A widely cited review in American Psychologist found large effects that even kept growing after therapy had ended⁹¹⁰. A meta-analysis in JAMA found large and stable effects of long-term therapy for complex mental disorders¹¹.

An honest caveat matters here: these studies examine psychotherapy for mental disorders, not self-help or apps. Change takes time, and nobody can guarantee it. But they show that it is worth understanding the patterns behind your conflicts instead of working on the symptoms over and over.

First steps: three questions for you

1. Where does something keep repeating? Think of a situation you have met in similar form several times, at work, in your relationship or in your family.
2. Which two wishes pull against each other? For example “I want to belong” and “I want to decide for myself”.
3. Where do I know this from? A pattern often made sense at some point in the past. Recognising this takes off pressure and opens up new ways.

Which techniques help to resolve them, from interpretation to two-chair dialogue, is the topic of our article Resolving inner conflicts.

This is the path MindMotion takes: from the conflict on the outside to the pattern on the inside, and from there to small, concrete steps in daily life.